black
by Potterworm
Summary: Hermione's life has been a combination of racism, prejudice, and fighting the two. A series of short drabbles in honor of the casting of a black woman as Hermione in "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child." (black Hermione)
1. Bobby

**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

 **Summary:** Hermione's life has been a combination of racism, prejudice, and fighting the two. A series of short drabbles in honor of the casting of a black woman as Hermione in "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child." (black Hermione)

 **black**

 _ **By Potterworm**_

 **i. Bobby**

When she is seven years old, Bobby Flenderson is her best friend. He talks to her every day on the playground, and that's a relatively new experience for Hermione.

(The other kids didn't really like her much. Her parents tell her it's because she's so smart that they're jealous, but Hermione reads a lot, and she knows what racism is, and sometimes she wonders.)

Then, one day, it all changes. He is little boy embarrassed when she runs up to him on the playground, her frizzy hair blowing in the wind. "Bobby!" she yells. She wants to tell him about what she just read in the library yesterday and how she thinks they could turn it into a fun playground game. She wants to tell him a lot of things, but she never gets the chance.

"Get away from me," he yells, and then he screams a word that Hermione hasn't read and doesn't know. But she's a smart girl – she's never gotten less than a perfect report card – and she can read his body language. She knows he just said a _mean word,_ and she knows friends don't yell mean words at friends.

She stands back from him, like he's a scared deer, and when she moves forward a half-centimeter, he startles. "Bobby," Hermione says, her voice all choked up and pleading in a way that she'll be very embarrassed about later.

"We're not friends," he says, and he kicks his shoe at the dirt. He won't look at her. Her _best friend_ won't look at her.

(Years later, Hermione's parents will tell her that Bobby's father was an abusive drunk, and he hated black people, and he told Bobby not to be friends with her. Bobby was just a scared little boy. A year later, Hermione will learn that Bobby has been taken from his home and put in an orphanage. Now, though, it doesn't matter. Now he's just a little boy, and Hermione is just a little girl, and they are not friends anymore.)

Hermione walks away from him. It's a long time before she has another friend.


	2. Mudblood

**ii. Mudblood**

When she first gets to the wizarding world, she hears the word Mudblood within ten minutes. (Ron and Harry think Draco Malfoy is the first person to yell it at her, later in their second year, but they never really did understand, did they?)

She is getting her wand, and her parents are standing behind her, very much excited for her, but also vaguely terrified. A boy walks into the shop – and she'll later recognize him in Gryffindor and feel a little sick to her stomach – and he immediately sneers upon looking at her parents.

Hermione knows she doesn't _know_ any spells yet, but if he says one word about her parents' race – about _her_ race – she knows she will fight him right there. She's expecting it; she's ready for it.

Instead, the boy turns to his parents and says, "Looks like the Mudbloods are here. We should come back later, when they're not polluting the area."

Hermione half-expects his parents to disapprove; after all, her parents would never let her get away with talking like that. Instead, they look disgusted, like they've just smelt something rather foul, and walk out of the shop.

Her parents have been looking at wands on the shelves, and they've missed the entire exchange, but Hermione feels vaguely like she's been punched in the stomach. When they turn back to her, she's schooled her expression. Mr. Ollivander comes back into the room with another stack of wands, and Hermione picks one up.

She's been dealing with racism her whole life – and she's beginning to realize her parents have too. But as she holds up her wand, and it turns warm in her hand and shoots out a few sparks, she realizes it doesn't matter if she's a "Mudblood," she's a witch – and Hermione vows right there to be a good one.


	3. The Library

**iii. The Library**

Her second night at Hogwarts, Hermione tries to find the word "Mudblood" in one of the books. She's having trouble locating it (and won't realize for years that Dumbledore has censored some of the more crude books to the Restricted section).

Finally, after an hour or so, she goes up to Madame Pince. "I'm having trouble locating something in the library," she says.

Madame Pince looks at her kindly, interested in this new first year student already at the library. "What can I help you find?"

Hermione looks around. She knows this question might not be well-received. Madame Pince recognizes her vague panic and leans forward. There's no one around though, so Hermione asks her, "Is there … a dictionary that might contain the definition of … slurs?" she finally says. She finds herself trying to look at Madame Pince, trying to be brave like a Gryffindor, but instead focuses on the dusty bookshelf to the left of her eyes.

Madame Pince looks less taken aback than Hermione would have expected, and Hermione will later realize that she's not the first muggleborn to come to the library for answers. "What's your name?" Madame Pince asks.

Hermione is panicked for a moment, terrified she's in trouble for asking for this book. But finally, she mutters, "Hermione Granger."

Madame Pince nods at her surname and then strides out from behind the circulation desk. She walks back through some stacks and comes back a moment later with a thin volume. Pince hands it to Hermione.

Hermione looks down at it. _So You're Muggleborn,_ it's called. She looks confused for a moment, but Madame Pince indicates for her to open it and adds in explanation, "Miss Granger, your last name isn't a pureblood one." Then, mildly and professionally, "try chapter five."

Hermione nods in thanks and makes her way to a back, secluded table. She notes an upper-year Ravenclaw in the corner, studying already.

She flips to chapter five and sees the definition of "Mudblood" in bold letters across the page.

Hermione spends the rest of the day reading the entire book. If she's going to be discriminated against, it's not going to be because she doesn't understand.

Hermione wants to understand everything.


	4. Or worse, expelled

**iv. Or worse, expelled**

"Now if you two don't mind, I'm going to bed before you come up with another idea to get us killed, or worse, expelled," Hermione says. She storms away, and she can feel herself huffing and puffing like she just ran a marathon.

She hears Ron's snarky comment, hears him say, "She needs to get her priorities sorted out."

And in her year so far at Hogwarts, Hermione has been forever grateful for the way that Harry and Ron have _never once_ mentioned the color of her skin, and they've never once implied that her lack of magical parents makes her inferior. But still – sometimes she wonders if their lack of commenting means they really just don't know.

(How could they _possibly_ not know? She'll wonder forever.)

Because Ron doesn't understand what being expelled for her means. She's read the books, and she knows being expelled almost always means your wand is snapped. For Ron, if he was expelled, his parents would apply to get him a new wand and would homeschool him. Harry is the boy-who-lived, and they wouldn't even dream of exiling him from the wizarding world.

For Hermione, if she was expelled, the wizarding world would just… cease to be. She wouldn't be a witch anymore, and she would never see Ron, Harry, Madame Pince, Transfiguration class, charms, the Great Hall – none of it - ever again.

Hermione would go back to live with her parents, and she would just be a black girl who people threw slurs at occasionally.

She wouldn't be special anymore; she wouldn't be magic anymore.

(Because for all the troubles the wizarding world has and for all the prejudices she has faced, at least she is magic here.)

Hermione thinks, no she _knows,_ she would rather die.


	5. Dean Thomas

_Inspired by a review by indanthrene-gecko_

 **V.** **Dean Thomas**

During second year, when the whole school realizes a monster is attacking muggleborn wizards, Hermione is in the library by herself – for the first time in a week; Ron and Harry won't leave her alone. She finds herself a little nervous at being alone, even though they had been driving her nuts.

She walks into the library, intending to sit down alone when she spots Dean Thomas sitting at a long table by himself. Hermione stares for a long moment and then – making up her mind – goes and sits down at the table opposite him.

He looks up from his book, startled, and then confused at who's sitting next to him. "Hermione," he says. Dean nods his head after a moment.

She looks down at her book, suddenly not having the words to express what she wants to say.

He lets her avoid eye contact for a moment and then finally says, "So… what's going on?"

Hermione smiles bitterly. She sort of wanted this moment to be unspoken and just understood, but shared heritage and ethnicity aside, she and Dean have never been friends. It's foolish to think he'll be able to read her mind just because he's a half-blood and black. Finally, she says, "I – I know you're not muggleborn like me, but I figured it can't hurt to stick together."

Dean looks a little stunned, but her skin matches his, and last week she heard a Slytherin call him a foul, racist name. He may not be muggleborn, but he's close. "Yeah, okay," he says.

They study together in silent solidarity, and she expects that to be the end of it. But the next day, he's back in the library at the table, and so is she.

Now, they are twelve, and they lack the words to talk about the problems they have faced, but someday, they will talk about it at that very table.


	6. Friends

**VI. Friends**

" _A boy walks into the shop – and she'll later recognize him in Gryffindor and feel a little sick to her stomach – and he immediately sneers upon looking at her parents." –vignette 2, "Mudblood"_

As a first year student, Hermione doesn't run into the upper year students very much. Sure, they share a common room, but Harry, Ron, and Hermione tend to stick together and stay in their own little world. She so rarely looks up from books that she doesn't cross paths with him until it's nearly winter break.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione are walking back into the common room, and Hermione is the first through the portrait. She stops, and Ron nearly stumbles into her, and goes, "Hermione, what?"

She had heard his voice before she saw him, but now she sees him – the boy from the shop. The boy who called her a Mudblood on her first trip to Diagon Alley. She never thought he would be a Gryffindor, had instead pictured him as an evil Slytherin.

Her voice a bit smaller than she'd like it to be, she says, "It's nothing."

Harry looks at her confused for a moment. Then, after following her gaze, he reaches a conclusion and says, "Guys, I forgot I need something in the library. Come with me."

Ron moans for a moment, saying he hates the library and why does Harry need them to come, and it's the weekend, and he doesn't want to, but then Harry elbows him in the stomach – hard.

They flee the common room. Harry murmurs something in Ron's ear that Hermione doesn't hear and then – miraculously – Ron doesn't ask her what's wrong in the library. He doesn't ask her why she had turned as pale as Nearly Headless Nick or ask her who she was staring at. Instead, he and Harry go to the Quidditch aisle, and Harry picks up a copy of _Quidditch through the Ages._

Years from now, this story will come up in a pub. Harry will tell her that he had heard that the upperclassman had bullied some people, and he knew people hadn't been nice to her before the troll brought them all together.

"I don't like bullies," he'll say, and his voice will sound as harsh and powerful as it did when he defeated Voldemort.

He hadn't realized _what_ she had been bullied about, and she'll be on her fourth drink and a bit tipsy, and she'll tell him how young she was when she first heard the word Mudblood. Ron will look queasy, and she'll think that she's the luckiest girl in the world for having a friend who would stick up for her – even if he had no idea what he was protecting her from.

Now, they stay in the library for hours, laughing and talking at a table until Madame Pince kicks them out.


	7. Brave

**VII. Brave**

In second year, Hermione realizes that she is worthy of being in Gryffindor – even when she's not saving the world from Voldemort. After the first person is petrified, and the Slytherins are throwing around slurs more often, they are leaving the Great Hall. Then, Hermione bumps into a Slytherin accidentally. "Sorry," she murmurs. She's been keeping her head down lately, her voice quieter.

Ron sees the look on the boy's face before she does, and his spine goes rod straight. He indicates to Harry, and they both keep their hands on their wands.

And then the boy doesn't call her a "Mudblood," not like the boy last week in Charms class or the girl three weeks ago in the washroom. Instead, for the first time in a while, Hermione hears a familiar racial slur wash over her.

This is strangely comforting for a moment. The fear of being hated for her blood purity has kept her up at night. It is something she had gotten used to in the last two years, but it is still _new._ This – this she had been dealing with her entire life. She knows how to deal with racists.

Harry takes a step forward, and Ron stammers in outrages. Hermione, though, she raises a hand backwards to them, and they stop. She looks up now at the Slytherin, feeling strangely self-assured. She goes to move, and the Slytherin blocks her path. "You're not even worth my time. You," she says, "you are nothing."

The Slytherin is stunned for a moment, but she brushes past him. Ron and Harry follow, and they stay silent for only a minute outside of the Great Hall before Harry says, "Hermione, that was wicked."

She lets loose a smile. "I was pretty brave, wasn't I?" She means to sound cocky and self-assured again, but the fight has drained out of her, and her question comes across meek and desperate.

Harry and Ron are her friends for a reason, and they immediately reassure her. They lavish praise on her. As they walk back to the common room, after a silence, Ron asks, "Is it always like that?"

"What do you mean?" Hermione asks, even though she knows.

Harry looks at Ron and her. "I don't think there's as many racists in the wizarding world as there are in the muggle world," Harry explains.

Hermione looks at Ron, really looks at him. "I think you don't notice that I'm black, because you're a good person, Ron Weasley. But yes, it's always been like this. Maybe there aren't as many racists, but I'm just fighting a new battle here. I'm black in the muggle world, and I'm black and a muggleborn here." She wants to end with some poignant statement about how she won't give up, but Hermione is twelve years old, and sometimes she wants to.

Ron looks horrified for a minute, but then he and Harry lead her into the common room, and they start a game of Exploding Snap. They spend the entire night with her.

(When they are seventeen, on their first date, someone will call her a racial slur outside of the restaurant. Ron will punch him in the nose, and then they will run away, laughing. She will cry, and he'll ask her what's wrong, and she'll kiss him – hard.)


End file.
